Soft power discourse framed US dominance as benign across the establishment

Evidence

By resorting to a concept of performativity, I intended to bring Said to the reality of modernity, or modern reality, one that involved and could not have evolved outside certain deep structures of thought, epistemic sovereignty, segregation, fragmentation, cultural engineering, colonialism, and especially genocide, in all of its forms. Said seems to have overlooked Foucault’s important insistence that it is “necessary” to “distinguish power relations from relationships of communication that transmit information by means of a language, a system of signs, or any other symbolic medium. No doubt, communicating is always a certain way of acting upon another person or persons,” but the effects of power “are not simply an aspect” of communication. “Power relations [and] relationships of communication … should not therefore be confused.” — Wael Hallaq, Restating Orientalism, 31 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: The US distinguished its postwar dominance from old colonialism as benevolent supremacy — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of…, 245; Soft power frames US dominance as attractiveness rather than coercion; The Clinton era reframed US hegemony as humanitarian democracy promotion — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of…, 459 (+3 more)

Broader Connections

• The entire US foreign policy establishment shared soft-power dominance assumptions until Trump #corroborates (0.95)
• Said conflates power relations with communicative discourse #complicates (0.72) — Wael Hallaq, Restating Orientalism, 31